FILM CASTING: The Downfalls of Casting in the Modern Movie Musical
The movie musical. A genre that has been beloved for many many years now. It's also something that has been an issue with audiences lately, and frankly, with very good reasoning.
With the popularity of musicals in general on the up and up in pop culture, we've seen Hollywood invest more and more money into making revised or live action musicals on camera. But, as someone who is an avid movie and musical lover, I feel it has been unsuccessful most of the time. Why? Because Hollywood and live theatre are not on the same wave length.
Hollywood is wired to make money. That's why there are a billion Star Wars and Marvel Movies, A List actors in movies they are definitely not right for, and the same movies by the same directors with the same plot line getting produced over and over again in five year increments. Theatre, however, is not as much focused on the money aspect. Lately, yes, there have been musical adaptations and revivals bound to make money, but for the most part, there are always new works coming out with a mix of both popular theatre artists and new artists. So, this causes a lot of conflict when casting for the movie musical.
I don't think a lot of screen actors and creative teams know the extent of difficulty musical theatre work can be, especially a lot of these complex popular works being adapted. Do some? Definitely. But it's definitely not the majority. And unfortunately, the brunt of that responsibility and expectation from the audience falls on the headline actors that are hired to make money. For example, La La Land should not have had Ryan Gosling in it. Did I think he did a wonderful job considering his skills? Yes. Did he unnecessarily have to learn a lot of skills that someone on Broadway probably already knows how to do in the drop of a hat? Definitely. And this is the main problem with modern musical movie adaptations: we are not using the Broadway talent available to us.
It's a funny dilemma actually: I've found that a lot of musical lovers are very vocal movie lovers (like myself), but movie lovers are not usually in the musical lovers community. It's tough, but honestly unacceptable. Instead of Hollywood using actors who are not adequate for these heavy movie musical roles (and no shame to them; it's just not what they are trained for or used to) they should be using those in the Broadway community who are qualified enough to take on these roles well.
For example, I saw tick, tick... boom! last week (which was amazing by the way). Granted, this is a bias example, but it makes a good point. Andrew Garfield was cast as Jonathan Larson. Does he have musical credits in his resume? No. But he has a lot of theatrical credits, and he was working with a team of both cast and creatives who are wildly popular and experienced in the modern musical theatre world. Did he pull off his performance? Absolutely. And I knew he would, because a list of iconic creatives and performers from Broadway that extensive would never let the face of the project turn out a mediocre performance, much less a bad one.
Another great example of this is the new Spielberg West Side Story hitting theaters in a few days. Ansel Elgort, while more a name in Hollywood, has previous musical credits. And a good 75% of the cast are people that have made life long careers on Broadway (Mike Faist, Ben Tyler Cook, Jess LeProtto... Rita Moreno for God's sake). They even pulled creatives like Justin Peck (the choreographer, who has only worked in stage choreography in the ballet and Broadway scene). Casting even did so much as to choose Rachel Zegler for Maria, who has popularity in the theatre community but has never done professional theatre or film jobs before.
As much as I don't want to talk about this movie, another great example is Dear Evan Hansen. Should they have cast Ben Platt? Probably not. He's getting and looking way too old to play a teenager. But he's played the role before in the musical, and we know he has the chops to do it. They also cast many people who are involved in the musical theatre world (Colton Ryan understudied Connor in the musical, Amy Adams (who has had many musical theatre credits and has talked about them extensively since her role in Enchanted)).
My point is: the talent is there. Can exceptions be made? Yes, but it must be thoughtfully done and with a good reason. But Hollywood needs to get it through their brains that they may actually save money and turn out a better product if they use the actors and creatives trained to work on musicals for movie musicals.
I understand they have to make money, too. But there are a lot of actors and actresses who not only are trained to do both stage and screen work, but actually have extensive resume credits on both the stage and the screen (Daniel Radcliffe, Nathan Lane, Maggie Smith, Timothee Chalamet, Bette Midler... just to name a few). Furthermore, this crossover from stage to screen has been going on for years now. Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury, Tim Curry... all actors who have worked prominently on both the screen and the stage. So honestly Hollywood? The laziness is real. We can see it from a mile away.
Anyways, Hollywood doesn't have any excuse to not bring in professional stage actors or new named creatives trained in the musical theatre world for these revamped movie musicals. It'll cause a lot less headaches for all the budding and established stage artists who have been banging their heads and screaming at the top of their longs to beg Hollywood to stop butchering our favorite musicals. Don't make enemies of us Hollywood; it's not flattering for either of us, I promise.
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